He is one of radio's most recognisable voices and for the last 10 years has been the face of the industry's equivalent of the Oscars, the Sony Radio Academy awards. But Paul Gambaccini, whose 35-year broadcasting career has spanned BBC Radios 1 to 4, has been dropped from the prestigious annual industry awards ceremony. When the Sonys are handed out at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London next May, the 59-year-old DJ will have been replaced by a younger presenter and will have to settle for a place in the audience.

Gambaccini revealed he was standing down in an interview with MediaGuardian, in which he also questioned the BBC's priorities after Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas quit but Jonathan Ross kept his job after the "Sachsgate" scandal.

"I have presented the Sony awards for 10 years and I will not be presenting the next one," said Gambaccini. "The new board wanted someone younger and a change. Ten years is the longest run ever and I feel very, very privileged to have been able to do that."

Gambaccini said he had been told "very politely" that his services were no longer required. "I would be nuts not to want to do it for the rest of my life," he said of the Sonys. "It's a dream gig."

The DJ, who began broadcasting on BBC Radio 1 35 years ago, has become a fixture of the awards, noted for his bitchy asides and habit of launching into song if a winner's speech drags on too long.

On one occasion he famously told the gathering of industry executives and presenters: "I see more ex-bosses than I have ex-lovers. Unlike some of my ex-lovers, some of you have really fucked me."

Gambaccini, who has been appointed visiting professor of broadcast media at Oxford University, was the only BBC presenter to be openly critical of Douglas after Ross and Russell Brand left lewd messages on Andrew Sachs's answer machine on Brand's Radio 2 show, resulting in more than 40,000 complaints.

Gambaccini criticised cuts to the BBC's radio budget and the £18m paid to Ross, which he described as a "disaster" for both the presenter and the BBC.

"I don't think any man, no matter how strongly rooted he is in family and friends, wants to be seen as the icon of greed in this country," Gambaccini told MediaGuardian.

"But the explosion of the Andrew Sachs incident happened to coincide with that moment in the economic collapse when people started worrying not only about the financial fortunes of their friends but about themselves, and whereas previously Jonathan's exorbitant contract may just have been a piece of whimsy, it now became a personal insult to a lot of people, and this was brilliantly played like a Stradivarius by [Daily Mail publisher] Associated Newspapers and the critics.

"Very soon the fact that Jonathan is paid as much as he is, or is said to be, took over from the offensive content of his programme."

He said the BBC had shown an "interesting set of priorities" by retaining Ross – he is on a 12-week unpaid period of suspension – while both Douglas and Brand had resigned.

"In a sense it was a brutal comment to dispense with Russell and suspend Jonathan," said Gambaccini. "It's like saying Jonathan is important to us and Russell isn't, Jonathan is more important to us than Lesley. I mean, effectively that's what they said.

"I realise the BBC is an executive hierarchy where all credit and blame goes to the producers rather than the performers but nonetheless, to make Lesley go and have Jonathan stay for something Jonathan said shows a very interesting set of priorities."

He said cuts to the BBC's budget had "cut flesh as well as fat" from BBC radio, which he said was "laughably underfunded".

"There are fewer quality documentaries being made on radio. That's just a fact, not me making an accusation. It really pains me greatly that one of the best, if not the best, organisation in this country suffers because of lack of full funding."